Technical Field
The disclosure relates to a technology for reconfiguring a circuit configuration of a field programmable gate array (FPGA).
Description of Related Art
Techniques for automatically inspecting workpieces have become widespread in the factory automation (FA) field. A process of inspecting workpieces is realized by a combination of various image processes. Applications that provide a user interface to allow a user to set such a combination of image processes have been developed.
With respect to such applications, Japanese Patent Application Publication Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2014-203309 discloses an image processing device which can realize more efficient and high-speed image processing by utilizing the user's knowledge about specific application image processing. According to said Patent Publication, the user selects desired process items from a plurality of process items in which different image processes are defined, arranges the process items side by side on the user interface, and executes each of the process items in an execution order according to the order in which the process items are arranged. The user can realize an arbitrary inspection process by changing the combination of process items. Hereinafter, a series of grouped image processes realized by the process items combined by a user is also referred to as a “user-set process flow.”
The user-set process flow is executed, for example, by an image processing device such as a visual sensor. Some FPGAs installed in the image processing device have a function of dynamically reconfiguring their circuit configuration during execution of a process (a so-called partial reconfiguration (PR) function). When such an FPGA is used, the image processing device appropriately reconfigures the circuit configuration of the FPGA in the course of executing the user-set process flow.
Various image processing programs for reconfiguring the circuit configuration of the FPGA are provided, for example, from an information processing device such as a server. Since the memory capacity of the image processing device is generally not so great, it is not practical to preinstall all image processing programs that can be provided from the information processing device in the image processing device. Therefore, only image processing programs necessary to realize the user-set process flow are installed from the information processing device.
When the user-set process flow has been updated, the image processing device needs to newly install therein necessary image processing programs from the information processing device. Here, when the storage locations of the image processing programs in the image processing device have been rewritten, the image processing device cannot specify where the necessary functions are stored. Therefore, there is a demand for a technology which can specify the storage locations of required functions even when the user-set process flow has been updated